I think I may be confused. I believe in evolution (albeit not as the FULL) and God. I think evolution through adaptation as God's work. But why must one HAVE to chose between God a science? This always gets me about both sides of these arguments- for people like me it's weird I see lines where some need not be. Why must it be one or the other? I see Gods hands all over it all. Or perhaps my misunderstanding this is one of those things about organized religion I'll never quite understand? It's just not my cup of tea, I mean no disrespect for I truly am curious what I am missing here.

My bad Ill, I didn't mean literally a choice between evolution and God. Personally, I don't believe evolution was involved, but in no way do I think it could not have been, with God. What I am against is evolution, or any explanation of creation, that doesn't involve an intelligent design. I do think that you can believe in God and evolution, I just don't think that even evolution could happen without God. I should have been more clear.

I think I may be confused. I believe in evolution (albeit not as the FULL) and God. I think evolution through adaptation as God's work. But why must one HAVE to chose between God a science? This always gets me about both sides of these arguments- for people like me it's weird I see lines where some need not be. Why must it be one or the other? I see Gods hands all over it all. Or perhaps my misunderstanding this is one of those things about organized religion I'll never quite understand? It's just not my cup of tea, I mean no disrespect for I truly am curious what I am missing here.

My bad Ill, I didn't mean literally a choice between evolution and God. Personally, I don't believe evolution was involved, but in no way do I think it could not have been, with God. What I am against is evolution, or any explanation of creation, that doesn't involve an intelligent design. I do think that you can believe in God and evolution, I just don't think that even evolution could happen without God. I should have been more clear.

Ahh sounds in a way how I'm seeing it- since I don't see it in a way as anyone 100% it hard to follow sometimes I myself do follow an intelligent design though I call him God.

Though I joke that the an atheists belief in no God acknowledges a God in the first place so they can then deny God _________________-Bring on your thousands, one at a time or all in a rush. I don't give a damn. None shall pass.
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-To become a Jedi, it is not the Force one must learn to control but oneself.
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-Podcasts: Star Wars Beyond the Films, The Star Wars Report, & EUCast

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 2:02 pm

Message

Rouge77Master

Joined: 22 Mar 2008Posts: 599

Old Master Ben wrote:

Even if evolution was involved, do you really think that the earth just happened by random chance? Now that is illogical.

Yes, I believe that we are here because of a very large number of random occurrences. There's nothing illogical in it. There are 100-400 billion stars in our own galaxy and at least 125 billion galaxies in the observable universe. Lots of room for random events. There might be billions of Earth-like planets in our own galaxy alone.

Old Master Ben wrote:

That is not wanting to believe in a God, so you take whatever "evidence" you can find to prove that God does not exist. But if you just thought about it rationally, a God makes more sense than any of this "science."

I'm relatively happy that god or gods don't make sense. Otherwise I would have to face the question how a good and omnipotent god can create a world where so much terrible suffering happens. There would be two religious answers to that: Good god isn't omnipotent or that omnipotent god isn't good. Neither of answers which fit Christianity for example.

Old Master Ben wrote:

An intelligent God created it, or it was formed through a scientific process called the big bang; the idea that the Universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some finite time in the past. The earth itself was formed from a disk-shaped mass of dust and gas left over from the formation of the Sun.

Yes, and we can observe both that imprint of the big bang in the cosmic microwave background, study the expansion of the universe through redshift etc and have observed lots of disks of matter around young stars, in different stages of formation. So, there's nothing especial in the formation of the Earth. It's a result of simple events that happen continously around our own galaxy and the universe as a whole we can assume.

Old Master Ben wrote:

How could something this complex have been formed by a disk-shaped mass of dust? How could things evolve into the incredibly accurate and complex design of a human? You probably won't acknowledge this, but it takes faith to believe in evolution.

Complexity can arise from very simple beginnings and events. There's some neat computer programs that have been used to study this. What comes to humans being accurate etc, I don't think we are that perfect as such. Of course we often tend to hybristically think that we are a pinnacle of the natural world, but I think that a much more perfect human being could be created with "intelligent design" - which we will probably eventually do through tampering with our genes, whether that's good or ill.

What comes to faith in evolution, my answer is no. One thing that protects against such beliefs is that while evolution itself is nailed down as proven fact, many aspects of evolution are still somewhat open. The most important being how life actually emerged - there being little amount of rocks from before 3.8 billion years ago because of the Late Heavy Bombardment and whatever simple pre-DNA self-organizing things gave birth to first true life in the RNA world, wouldn't have left fossils anyway - and then the role and importance of mutations in evolution. So, there's always questions open that demand that one has an open mind to different possibilities and one has to think about things, not just accept them, what faith is all about. Child-like blind faith without any questions, just pure belief in God, that's what Jesus is made to say in the Bible and what Martin Luther later told would open the gates of Heaven.

Old Master Ben wrote:

I have a really hard time believing that everything just happened by chance? How can you think that you were formed by chance, evolved from something created in a disk-shaped mass of dust and gas left over from the formation of the sun, which came from an every expanding universe?

Because everything points towards random chance and the picture of the universe in your quotation. Personally I think it's wondrous and I am awed before the cosmos and the events of the deep past that has resulted in our existence here. I don't feel there's need for anything more than what we humanity as a whole can make of our existence, no need for a greater plan than we can design for ourselves. I feel we are free, not constrained by any grand plan for the universe and us.

Old Master Ben wrote:

I have an entire historical book detailing the creation of the universe. I consider it to tell the truth, you don't. You don't even consider it as evidence because of your bias that there is no God.

Bias? I don't think so. If there would be an omnipotent god, creator of the universe and us, if it would wish so it could give undeniable evidence of it's existence and make everybody accept it as a fact. Either there is no such god or it hides from intelligent beings, and in the latter case it's once again the case that one can't disprove or prove the existence of a supernatural being through observation of the natural world.

Old Master Ben wrote:

And if you think the path of Christianity is easy, than you need to study up on the Bible. If you're going to debate it, you should at least understand it. No Christian chose Christianity because it would make life how they want to live it. It's really easy to not believe in a God, huh?

I have known lots of Christians who have never thought deeply about their own religion, lots of who have never read the Bible even in the same amount of I have - and I have never read it through - and several of Christians who have chosen to believe in god and to shun scientific worldview because they are afraid of the latter. They want a simple world they feel they can understand and a hope of an everlasting life for themselves and their loved ones. What science shows the world to be like hurts them, but truth often hurts.

Of course I would like there to be life after death. Who wouldn't? It's just that there's no reason for it. If there would be god, it could have created us all sinless,good, perfect and immortal in the first place.

What comes to your story, only a medical doctor who would have gone through the material connected to your grandfather could offer a medical explanation. I can't, of course, not being a medical doctor etc.
But everybody has such stories. And I think that behind every such story there is some down-to-earth reason, but of course often it can't be found.

I don't know how to hide this, so here it goes like this:

As a young man in the 60s my dad got in a car accident which if anybody's was his fault. He and his mate got badly injured, were inside the wreck of their car at the bottom of a ravine on a rarely travelled road in an area where there were no houses. And it was night. They had couple of girls with them and the girls climbed up to the road to seek help and soon there came a car, the only one they had seen on that road, it stopped, and there were four big men in it who carried my father and his friend up and took them to a hospital. My dad lost one of legs below the knee, his friend had internal injuries but they both survived. And the crux of the matter is that these men had had no intention to drive that way, they had taken the wrong turn in a crossroads ten kilometers before the crash site. Without it the both men could have died - my dad was still in a critical condition when his leg was amputated in the hospital. Because of this one random event, a driver taking a wrong turn in a crossroads, my dad believed that god had saved his life. In my opinion, it was just a random event. Hundreds of thousands of people die in car accidents every year - why would god have saved my father when letting tens of millions of others die in car accidents during the last century or so?

Similarly, my maternal grandmother had a story how she was on a railway station seeing my grandfather leave to fight in the WW II. She was crying, and suddenly she heard a voice inside her head calling her by name and telling that my grandfather would survive. As he did, although he was wounded. And my grandmother was sure that this was the voice of god. Personally I think that some person on the station who she knew had said it to her, trying to comfort her, but she didn't notice that person in her emotional state and the rush of people around her. I didn't ever tell that to her of course, because she was so fond of it. Yet, why would have a god especially saved my grandfather out of tens of millions who would perish?

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 4:35 pm

Message

AutobonMaster

Joined: 17 Apr 2008Posts: 751Location: Seattle, Washington

Rouge77 wrote:

And evolution is proven. It's just that some people don't want to accept the fact

No its not proven. It cant be proven, no matter how much "evidence" you think you found. Its not like a math problem or something, where you can prove 100% sure that it is correct. Evolution is studied by supposed remains and patterns. While you can come up with lots of things to make yourself believe evolution, the fact remains that you can never actually be 100% certain, due to the nature of what your studying (creation of the universe). It will always be a mystery, so to say it is proven and call it a scientific law is incredibly ignorant. The same can be said for creation, it cant be proven 100%.

Quote:

it's the same with evolution and creationists. There's just nothing they will accept. I feel that arguing with people like them is pointless

But couldn't the same thing be said about evolutionists? While you may feel creationists are ignoring facts you throw at them, on the flip side they feel that you are ignoring facts they point out to you. And there are good points as well. For example take a look at an eye. Its is INSANELY complex and fragile. How does one go about evolving an eye? Do you have any idea the unbelievable odds and perfect mutations that must take place? Ignore the fact that studies show that mutations are almost always bad or pointless. Ignore the fact that it wouldn't make sense for an animal to develop an eye anyways. What were they doing for millions of years without one, or while it was being evolved? And thats just the eye, forget all the other components it takes to make it function.

So you may feel like its pointless to argue with a creationist, but from their side its just as pointless to argue with an evolutionists. From where I stand, your belief takes far more faith then mine. You must be willing to accept odds that are virtually impossible, and then you have to accept that these impossible odds happened a TON of times to get to where we are. That takes faith!

Quote:

because they don't make their choice on a rational basis, but basis on what they fervently want the world to be like.

Take a second to look at what evolution does. The idea of evolution is to explain something without God. So the fact that there are variables that are being excluded to begin with shows that it is in fact YOU who fervently want the world to be a certain way. I would have a lot more respect for evolution if it was truly an open minded search for the answer to our origins, but sadly this is not the case. It is incredibly close minded and intolerant of any other arguments that go against it.

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What science shows the world to be like hurts them (christians), but truth often hurts.

How so? What does science say that goes against biblical teachings? Evolutionists like to always say things like this, but I am clueless to where they get it from. Science strengthens my belief in god, as it does for many Christians. I know that there are Christians that develop strange ideas that are not biblical at all, but I can find wierd people on both sides

In light of that, maybe we should stick to a more normal world view as we continue the debate.

Quote:

There would be two religious answers to that: Good god isn't omnipotent or that omnipotent god isn't good. Neither of answers which fit Christianity for example.

First off, lets not discuss other religious topics in this thread, as i do want to answer them, but its not on topic. I will point out though, that you cannot make such an incredibly simple statement and call it good. If you would take even 10 minutes to actually study the bible, you would not have made a statement like that.

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 5:57 pm

Message

Mara Jade SkywalkerAdministrator

Joined: 15 Feb 2008Posts: 5681Location: Beyond Shadows

Rogue77 wrote:

Of course I would like there to be life after death. Who wouldn't? It's just that there's no reason for it. If there would be god, it could have created us all sinless,good, perfect and immortal in the first place.

You know, you say you've read the Bible. Have you read the part where God says that he created Adam and Eve sinless, good, perfect, and immortal to begin with? But He also gave them a choice. Someone who creates an intelligent creation but gives it no choice is simply creating a puppet. God originally created people perfect, yet gave them the choice to do what they wished. In my opinion, that's an incredibly loving God right there, that he would give his people the choice of whether to obey Him or not. The people were the ones who first decided to sin and disobey their God.

And as for your claim that how could God let bad things happen, that seems like such an arrogant statement. I've heard it a million times. I'm not sure how old you are or if you have kids, but say you told them not to touch/shoot a gun you owned. Your son, however, went and took your gun and shot it anyway, knowing full well that he wasn't supposed to. You punished him because he disobeyed you. Would he be justified in saying that you weren't a loving parent because you punished him? No! You gave him a rule and he broke it. God is doing the exact same thing. He gave us laws to obey, and we daily break them. There are consequences. So no, the world cannot be a happy-go-lucky Utopia when people themselves are knowingly disobeying God. He can't bless us when we're doing wrong. Just like you wouldn't reward your son for breaking your rules.

So to say that God can't be a loving god because He allows bad things to happen is arrogantly stating that humans are good enough that they deserve the rich blessings He can poor out. We don't deserve the bad things that happen to us, that's what that statement is saying.

What I find amazing instead is that even after we've broken all of His laws, He still gives us a way out. Despite our constant disobedience, He still offers us the gift of total forgiveness. And all we need do is ask. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure how much more loving you could get. It saddens me that people completely miss this and instead point fingers at God and claim he can't be loving simply because He's punishing His disobedient children. _________________
"It's not about the legacy you leave, it's about the life you live." ~Mara Jade Skywalker

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 6:34 pm

Message

Rouge77Master

Joined: 22 Mar 2008Posts: 599

Autobon wrote:

It cant be proven, no matter how much "evidence" you think you found. Its not like a math problem or something, where you can prove 100% sure that it is correct. Evolution is studied by supposed remains and patterns. While you can come up with lots of things to make yourself believe evolution, the fact remains that you can never actually be 100% certain, due to the nature of what your studying (creation of the universe). It will always be a mystery, so to say it is proven and call it a scientific law is incredibly ignorant.

No. Evolution is something that laymen can understand, because it's simple. Same with evidence for it. Mathematicians claim how mathematics is beautiful, but it's never simple when you get to where you need to be a trained mathematician to understand really what is done. So, high mathematics is something that is beyond the understanding of most of us. I trust when a mathematicians find new prime numbers with their computers, but I can't prove that that's 100 % sure.

I don't think that there's anything in that universe that even theoretically can't be revealed, that has to be a mystery forever. And evolution certainly isn't. But I don't think that any evidence would be enough to change your mind.

Autobon wrote:

But couldn't the same thing be said about evolutionists? While you may feel creationists are ignoring facts you throw at them, on the flip side they feel that you are ignoring facts they point out to you.

But they aren't throwing out any facts because they don't have any. They can't prove anything. They are just giving out their opinions and ignoring evidence. Science has been dealing with creationist claims for the last 150 years, from the time when many still believed that it was the duty of scientists to fit scientific evidence to what Bible says. And the creationists have lost every contest. But they can continue, because there's no rule that would say that people couldn't continue to have opinions like this and bring them out in public - the problem arises when they hamper the teaching in schools and scientific work.

Autobon wrote:

And there are good points as well. For example take a look at an eye. Its is INSANELY complex and fragile. How does one go about evolving an eye? Do you have any idea the unbelievable odds and perfect mutations that must take place?

William Paley(1743-1805) brought this up as an evidence for god decades before Origin of Species. It has been proven wrong many times. Eye as now though of has probably evolved multiple times independently in post-Cambrian times. It's just an example how complex things can arise from simple origins. Only you need is some cell made sensitive to light through mutation for example and lots of time and generations.

Autobon wrote:

Ignore the fact that studies show that mutations are almost always bad or pointless. Ignore the fact that it wouldn't make sense for an animal to develop an eye anyways. What were they doing for millions of years without one, or while it was being evolved? And thats just the eye, forget all the other components it takes to make it function.

Eye-like organs exists already in simple organisms. And ability to observe even a little light is better than nothing. And animals were of course npt waiting for an eye to evolve, they evolved the whole time and the ability to observe light of course influenced their evolution.

Most mutations are of course, like you said, bad or pointless, it's just that there's so huge amount of them happening that occasionally there happens a positive mutation and sometimes these positive mutations get to spread in a population. Rare events, but enough.

Autobon wrote:

So you may feel like its pointless to argue with a creationist, but from their side its just as pointless to argue with an evolutionists.

It's pointless because they don't really want to argue using scientific rules and arguments, but they still want to show that scientists are wrong and they themselves and their particular religious beliefs are right. If you want to argue scientifically, you have to be able to accept defeat. They aren't ready to do that, because they have tied their faith to the belief that science is wrong in some particular thing, like in evolution. Which kind of fundamentalist view of religion is unnecessary in my opinion.

Autobon wrote:

The idea of evolution is to explain something without God.

Not really. Like in all science, in biology and paleontology things are studied inside the limits of this world we can observe. Supernatural beings can't be used to explain anything, because such claims can't be tested. Lots of scientists studying evolution have believed in some god or other. They have just kept their religious views separate from their scientific ones, even if they would have believed in some invisible, guiding hand of a god hiding behind everything. Because they couldn't prove such thing.

Autobon wrote:

I would have a lot more respect for evolution if it was truly an open minded search for the answer to our origins, but sadly this is not the case. It is incredibly close minded and intolerant of any other arguments that go against it.

It, like many other branches of modern science, just happens to be right. And that is because it has survived a barrage of arguments against it in the last 150 years. It has stood the test of time and human ingenuity in trying to prove it wrong. The time when religious explanations were also used came and went in the the early time of modern science from the 16th to the mid-19th century. They were not only unnecessary, but they were also on the way. When science liberated itself from the role of trying to prove religious claims, it could finally soar free.

Autobon wrote:

What does science say that goes against biblical teachings? Evolutionists like to always say things like this, but I am clueless to where they get it from.

Where to start? There has been no universal flood, a human being can't live to be 969 years old like Methuselah supposedly did - that's physically impossible, the limit is probably somewhere between 122-140 years - Bible has a geocentric worldview etc.

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 6:49 pm

Message

Rouge77Master

Joined: 22 Mar 2008Posts: 599

Mara Jade Skywalker wrote:

But He also gave them a choice. Someone who creates an intelligent creation but gives it no choice is simply creating a puppet. God originally created people perfect, yet gave them the choice to do what they wished. In my opinion, that's an incredibly loving God right there, that he would give his people the choice of whether to obey Him or not. The people were the ones who first decided to sin and disobey their God.

How can there be freedom of choice if there is an omnipotent god? (Some scientific theories of the nature of reality deny freedom of choice from us too.) Shouldn't everything to be pre-determined - and god seeing beforehand what his creations would do?

And freedom of choice, if there is it, leads to evil things in the Bible. Starting from Kain killing Abel to the people of Sodoma and Gomorrah bringing god's wrath upon themselves and Lot's wife turning to look back. An omnipotent god should have seen such things, and if it didn't step in to stop them, how can it be good? Couldn't it have stopped Kain from killing his brother? And where was the freedom of choice for Abel in that - a man who just tried to please his god was killed by his brother because his brother became envious? Shouldn't god have saved him?

Mara Jade Skywalker wrote:

And as for your claim that how could God let bad things happen, that seems like such an arrogant statement. I've heard it a million times. I'm not sure how old you are or if you have kids, but say you told them not to touch/shoot a gun you owned. Your son, however, went and took your gun and shot it anyway, knowing full well that he wasn't supposed to. You punished him because he disobeyed you. Would he be justified in saying that you weren't a loving parent because you punished him?

But where is my responsibility in keeping a gun so that he could get it - and what if he would have hurt himself or others? If he would have accidentally killed a friend of his as they would have been playing with it, wouldn't it have been my fault?

I don't personally really believe in punishing, more in teaching. Punishing just makes people bitter and think that you have mistreated them. It's better of make them to understand what they have done wrong and help them to thus to avoid doing it again. If I would punish a kid, it might be that he would do the same thing again just out of spite, rebel, driven to it because of what he would see to be unfair action from my part.

Mara Jade Skywalker wrote:

No! You gave him a rule and he broke it. God is doing the exact same thing. He gave us laws to obey, and we daily break them. There are consequences. So no, the world cannot be a happy-go-lucky Utopia when people themselves are knowingly disobeying God. He can't bless us when we're doing wrong. Just like you wouldn't reward your son for breaking your rules.

I believe that an omnipotent god doesn't need to punish anyone. I'm sure such a god could make us all behave like it would want to. And making up rules and punishing people for not obeying them can be tyrannical - and in this case we would be thinking of a collective punishment, where many of the victims would be utterly innocent themselves, even if their community would have been seen doing something wrong.

I believe that an omnipotent god doesn't need to punish anyone. I'm sure such a god could make us all behave like it would want to. And making up rules and punishing people for not obeying them can be tyrannical - and in this case we would be thinking of a collective punishment, where many of the victims would be utterly innocent themselves, even if their community would have been seen doing something wrong.

Certainly, God is omnipotent and could give us no choice but to obey Him. It's out of His great love for us that He gave us the right to choose, instead creating us mindless, forced to do what He says. He wants us to obey Him out of our own free will.

And I'm not really following what you mean by "collective punishment". Were you referring to Sodom and Gomorrah? Sorry, I got a little lost there._________________All things die, Anakin Skywalker, even stars burn out.

So this is how liberty dies....with thunderous applause.

Those without swords can still die upon them

The world is a mess and I just need to rule it.

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:35 pm

Message

Jedi JoeMaster

Joined: 11 Jun 2009Posts: 1562

Rouge77 wrote:

Punishing just makes people bitter and think that you have mistreated them. It's better of make them to understand what they have done wrong and help them to thus to avoid doing it again.

I was punished when I was little (and I still do get punished ), and I turned out alright. I think we should do a mix of both. There needs to be consequences for what you do.

About evolution... I don't have anything against Darwin or the evolution theory. I do believe there are some truths to evolution, and I don't know nor don't care if macro-evolution exists. I just believe that if it does, that it was a work of God, and not an act of randomness. Darwin was a Christian, y'know..._________________

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 8:04 pm

Message

AutobonMaster

Joined: 17 Apr 2008Posts: 751Location: Seattle, Washington

Rouge77, here is the problem. Evolution does not include God, or any room for an intelligent creator. From the very get go it ruled out any possibility of an intelligent designer, wouldn't give it a chance no matter what the evidence would show. This wouldn't necessarily matter if evolution was the study of pigmentation in plants for example, because it just a simple process that can easily follow the rules of a scientific study, and doesn't need the explanation of God to explain how it works.

Evolution on the other hand is different. Your trying to come to the conclusion on where we came from. This means the beginning of time, how did it come about. This is a completely different subject then most science. In fact, its not really science at all, because you HAVE to include the fact that maybe there is an intelligent creator. When dealing with the creation of matter and life as we know it, its an absolute crime to start excluding certain variables, when you have no idea if its correct or not. Thats not science. The only reason you would exclude any possibility of an intelligent designer is because you don't want one to exist, kind of like you alluded to before. Therefore evolutionary study is done at an extreme bias towards atheism, allowing for series errors in interpretation of things.

And yet, it is taught in school as one way humans came about, of course some teachers are sure to tell you that it is only a theory of how we came about. You may say this is because it is not religious, but thats complete crap. Evolution is heavily skewed towards atheism, and there are many famous believers in evolution that will admit to it, some of which I posted, but there are more. Intelligent design could be taught in school as well, since it is not Christian. Intelligent design has many arguments for it from a scientific point of view, and you can find plenty of resources on it.

Rouge77 wrote:

I don't think that there's anything in that universe that even theoretically can't be revealed, that has to be a mystery forever. And evolution certainly isn't. But I don't think that any evidence would be enough to change your mind.

From that statement, I know this debate could go on forever. The fact that you think evolution has been proven or for that matter can be 100% proven, is ridiculous. There are huge amounts of things not explained, gaps in records, etc. While this may be all you require, there are plenty of evolutionist's that will tell you its not proven yet, but that there is overwhelming evidence for it. At least most creationists have enough sense to know that creation theory can never be fully known, as nobody was there in the beginning of time and there isn't enough physical evidence left. The exact same thing goes for evolution. To believe evolution, means to have faith that maybe one day you will find the enormous gaps in the fossil record, that you believe that somehow, against many scientific findings, billions upon billions of good mutations occurred, and somehow that animal (there had to be many animals with the same mutation) survived. Sorry, but I would literally have to ignore science to believe that could happen.

You believe in an ideology that does not follow standard scientific behavior. You purposefully exclude variables from evolution save the ones you believe might be responsible. You cant call it science when you only look for what YOU want to find, and then interpret the results that way. Evolution is NOT a proper scientific theory, even though it may use certain scientific principles.

Quote:

They are just giving out their opinions and ignoring evidence.

They are not ignoring evidence. There are people with PH.D's in their fields that literally will go out and disprove things, or make cases against them WITH SCIENCE. They are not just sitting there in a rocking chair spouting off things that have nothing to do with science. The fact that you are throwing blanket statements everywhere in your posts shows that you have not even studied debates or read any decent books about creation vs. Evolution. They do give scientific evidence against evolution, they don't ignore it.

Quote:

from the time when many still believed that it was the duty of scientists to fit scientific evidence to what Bible says

The bible is not a science book, it doesn't need to be proven with science. You can disprove what the bible says scientifically, and you cant prove it.

Quote:

And the creationists have lost every contest

Um, ya..... I see your injecting your opinion. Creationists have not lost every argument, and thats not for you to decide anyways. Maybe for yourself, but not for anyone else.

Quote:

the problem arises when they hamper the teaching in schools and scientific work.

Teaching a atheistic theory full of gaps and holes in school should anger people. Not because it is being taught in school, but because it is the ONLY thing taught in school. Intelligent design should be taught along side it. It doesn't favor one religion. And if your going to argue that it does not follow the proper structure of a scientific theory, don't bother, neither does Evolution.

Quote:

Eye-like organs exists already in simple organisms. And ability to observe even a little light is better than nothing.

Oh really? How so? And no, I don't believe something as complex as the eye could just evolve. It either works or it doesn't. You start removing parts and it wont work. So I doubt it that just randomly everything fit perfectly into place and then boom! Magically the animal could see. I mean in an eye, things have to be perfectly placed, the thing is a work of beauty, everything about it is precise and well put together.

And the eye is just one tiny part of the body, forgot all the other things.

Quote:

And animals were of course npt waiting for an eye to evolve, they evolved the whole time and the ability to observe light of course influenced their evolution.

And there we go. Where is your proof for that? How do you know that their ability to observe light influenced their evolution?

Quote:

Most mutations are of course, like you said, bad or pointless, it's just that there's so huge amount of them happening that occasionally there happens a positive mutation and sometimes these positive mutations get to spread in a population. Rare events, but enough.

Its literally almost never that it is beneficial, yet you expect me to take a giant leap of faith and believe that somehow billions of mutations were great (and that the same great mutation even passed to other creatures) and even so precise and perfect that over time something like the eye was created...... right. Scientific studies on mutations does not support your position. And that is a fact. All you can rely on is "probably."

Quote:

It's pointless because they don't really want to argue using scientific rules

Evolution does not even follow scientific rules. The very way its set up, is not scientific. To exclude variables, to be so broad, it cant be proven, it cant be unproven, etc. Stop pretending you have science on your side, you don't.

Quote:

It, like many other branches of modern science, just happens to be right. And that is because it has survived a barrage of arguments against it in the last 150 years

.

I actually have some of the early books on evolution, my dad ordered them online. They are incredibly racist and flawed. Much of that stuff has had to be changed. Dont act like it proudly withstood the test of time. Its been changed many many times due to factual flaws. The only reason its still around is because athiest's need a way to explain creation without God.

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Bible has a geocentric worldview etc.

That is a lie. It says that nowhere in the bible. Dont believe everything you hear or read. Of course if you think it says that in the bible, by all means be my guest and find it.

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Anyways, I am going to call this debate quits for now, since its not really going anywhere. I enjoyed hearing everyones point of view of course, and its been fun. I will of course read any replies and might post short things.

Last edited by Autobon on Mon Oct 12, 2009 10:13 pm; edited 2 times in total

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 8:15 pm

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Old Master BenAdministrator

Joined: 10 Nov 2007Posts: 2259Location: Georgia

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How can there be freedom of choice if there is an omnipotent god? (Some scientific theories of the nature of reality deny freedom of choice from us too.) Shouldn't everything to be pre-determined - and god seeing beforehand what his creations would do?

And freedom of choice, if there is it, leads to evil things in the Bible. Starting from Kain killing Abel to the people of Sodoma and Gomorrah bringing god's wrath upon themselves and Lot's wife turning to look back. An omnipotent god should have seen such things, and if it didn't step in to stop them, how can it be good? Couldn't it have stopped Kain from killing his brother? And where was the freedom of choice for Abel in that - a man who just tried to please his god was killed by his brother because his brother became envious? Shouldn't god have saved him?

Rouge, I am afraid, in this part of the argument, who are ignoring the facts. Obviously, we are going on the idea that God is real. Which means our only real piece of evidence would be the Bible, correct? So, basing everything we know about God off of the Bible, you are ignoring the facts. Didn't Mara just say that God gives us a choice? You act like God is binded by some scientific law. In being all-powerful, I think it's up to him to give us a choice or not. Being all-knowing or all-powerful doesn't mean that He has to control us. In fact, in being all-powerful, He can decide to control us or not. Why would He? The Bible clearly states that he created man and the earth as a testament to His power. He wanted them to worship and glorify him. But, he is a God of choice. He put the tree in the Garden of Eden to allow a choice. And, yes, he knew what Adam and Eve would chose to do with the tree. He also knew that would would put sin into the world. He knew that the Devil would attempt to defeat him. And he knew that he would win and restore everything to order in the end. If that is all true, then he allowed it to happen for the same reason he created everything in the first place: to glorify him. When Jesus defeats Satan and rids the world of sin, that will be the biggest testimony to God's power that there can be. I don't think Revelation was a plan that God came up with after the choice made by Adam and Eve. He did know what they would do. Yes, he gave them a choice. Yes, he knew what they would decide. That doesn't mean He forced them to do it. I don't get how you can't see that. Just because He saw what was coming doesn't mean He forced it to happen. If Adam and Even had never messed with the tree, He would have seen that coming instead. But he doesn't make anybody do anything, because he allows us to be free.

The greatest example is salvation. God decided again that humans should be given a choice. They can decide to go to Heaven or Hell, though because of sin, they were all going to Hell by default. God made humans to live up to his standards, they chose not to, and he had a escape plan ready. He knew that as sinners, humans would not be willing to accept God by default. He could have made us all, but again, remember that he believes in choice. Here is why he sent Jesus: because he wanted to give us a choice. He didn't want to force us to believe. So he sent Jesus to die on a cross. Yes, he could have made a more extraordinary event that convinced everyone to chose Heaven. He could have written it more clearly. But He knew that as humans, we needed to see something that would humble us, and make us grateful, and that wouldn't force us to chose one way or the other. It can't be an obvious choice. Like, say the law of gravity. I think we all agree with the law of gravity, because it is so obvious. We really don't have a choice but to believe in it. But again, like with the tree, God wanted it to be something that would be left up to our minds to decide, without making one side or the other more impossible. Jesus dying something that He knew humans would connect with. I don't see it as, Jesus dying on the cross was the only path we could possibly have to Heaven. It's the path that God saw again, as something to glorify him, and to show how much He loves us.

God doesn't stop the bad from happening because He doesn't control us. He could, but he doesn't. He is not a dictator. If we chose to do evil, then we do. He gave us that right. And there will be punishment for that evil. Maybe you don't believe in punishment as the answer? Again, you show a lack of knowledge of the facts we are basing this entire conversation off of. God's punishments do teach. Punishment can teach. I get that you are one of those who people who think punishment can only destroy, but if people don't have consequences, how will they ever stop doing wrong? How can you teach against bad behavior or wrong deeds something without punishment? If I come and hit you, I would be arrested. A police officer wouldn't witness the event, walk up to me, and say "Hey, did you know that hitting is wrong? Not only can it hurt people physically and emotionally, it can also severe relationships and social status. Please don't do that." That might work for a kid who was two and didn't know right from wrong period. But in hitting you, I obviously was mad at you and knew what I was doing. Simply teaching me that it is wrong through words won't prevent me from doing it again. If I want to hit you, and I know that nobody will stop me, then I'm going to hit you! If I want to rob money from a bank, and the worst I get is a lecture to not do so, I'm still going to rob the bank.

Consequences are the only way to teach lessons. I personally believe that consequences were so great in the Bible to stress the fact that we should not do these things. Cain killed Able to be an example to us; do not kill. The punishment of Cain was not "Okay Cain. You shouldn't do that. I'm going to make you go hungry for a day." God banished Cain from his family! And here, God shows mercy to us as an example, by telling Cain that he will be safe in the future if someone wishes to attack him as he attacked Able. The majority of the Bible was meant as examples. Besides, I don't think that Able suffered a bad fate or punishment in all. You, being worldly and not believing in a God anyway, would view death as a punishment, and a horrible thing to happen to Able, after he served God. I think that Christians feel very differently. Death of a Christian is not bad. In fact, when the disciples died in the Bible, it refers to them as sleeping, every single time. Never once does it say they died, because it is showing how death on earth for a Christian is not the end, and it certainly is not bad.

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I believe that an omnipotent god doesn't need to punish anyone. I'm sure such a god could make us all behave like it would want to. And making up rules and punishing people for not obeying them can be tyrannical - and in this case we would be thinking of a collective punishment, where many of the victims would be utterly innocent themselves, even if their community would have been seen doing something wrong.

Again, repeating what I said before; God could make us behave how He wants us to. I'm glad you understand the magnitude of that. But He doesn't. Instead of finding that as merciful and kind, you see it as a flaw. In doing so, God would be acting as a dictator. Honestly, based off of these statements, I wonder how you can stand living in a place like America. Does America not make up rules and punish people for not obeying them? Do you think this is a bad thing? Please, imagine America without rules. It would be like I said before: no consequence means I will do what I want. And there is the difference; I will do what I want without rules. With rules, I still can, but maybe I won't. You don't believe that a God would allows us to be free, because you picture God as a tyrant and dictator. And if you don't think that God allows us to be free, then you will always debate the Bible. But please, don't debate the Bible with the Bible, when you won't even accept the whole Bible. You reference things like Cain, God being omnipotent, and ignore where it says that God allows us to chose what we want to do. If you're going argue against parts of the Bible, then maybe you need to know about all of it first.

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 12:39 am

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Mara Jade SkywalkerAdministrator

Joined: 15 Feb 2008Posts: 5681Location: Beyond Shadows

Here's the thing about God forcing us to do right and forcing us to love Him. If you were to get married, and you chose yourself a bride (I'm making this an analogy to creation), how much fun would it be to force your bride to love you? "Bride, you will love me, no matter what! This is what I have decided, because it would be very sad indeed if you chose not to. So therefore, by default, you must love me! Whether you like it or not." That would be the most horrible relationship! Wouldn't it be a million times better if you knew your bride chose to love you on her own? How happy would it make you to realize that she could have chosen to hate you, yet of her own accord she chose to love you! I couldn't imagine being God and creating all these people and then requiring that they love me. How much fun would that be? You know most of them are only doing it because they have to. God would rather give everyone a choice and allow the ones that truly love Him to do so. For those that don't, it is their own choice, and at least they are not displaying a false love.

Same goes for God seeing what would happen. Just because He can see what's going to happen doesn't mean He has to change it to a good outcome! Again, that's a controlling aspect. It's like getting a puppy and realizing that if you let it off of its chain, it's going to spread the trash all over the yard. So do you keep it tied up its entire life for fear that the trash will be dumped over? No! Well some people might, but that's not very loving of the puppy. I would teach the puppy not to spread the trash. Sure, it would happen a few times before he learned, but he would learn. And that's what God does with us. He allows us to make the mistakes that He knows we're going to make, and then He teaches us the right way. Again, though, it is our choice whether we follow the right path or not.

I just really don't understand how you could love a creation that you're forcing to be good, forcing to love you. It's like being ruler over billions of perfect, obedient robots. How boring would that be? I certainly wouldn't be thrilled. _________________
"It's not about the legacy you leave, it's about the life you live." ~Mara Jade Skywalker

Evolution does not include God, or any room for an intelligent creator.

Mine does! Everyone has a different POV on something. _________________-Bring on your thousands, one at a time or all in a rush. I don't give a damn. None shall pass.
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-To become a Jedi, it is not the Force one must learn to control but oneself.
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-Podcasts: Star Wars Beyond the Films, The Star Wars Report, & EUCast

Extinction's Footprint is interesting._________________-Bring on your thousands, one at a time or all in a rush. I don't give a damn. None shall pass.
-
-To become a Jedi, it is not the Force one must learn to control but oneself.
-
-Podcasts: Star Wars Beyond the Films, The Star Wars Report, & EUCast